Insurrection…or Nózh’q?

Dear old and new friends, You should be mad as hell—as your God is—for the injustice where you must work more than a month to make the same amount of money that the average CEO earns in one hour! Instead of silent acceptance of this inequality be infuriated that the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all wealth, while that of yours and the other 99% is daily eroding. That God hates injustice is obvious from the Hebrew prophets, including Nazareth’s carpenter prophet! This radical, sinful disproportion between the very, very rich and the rest of us could cause us to be jealous or eager to join an armed insurrection to establish financial equality…or we can consider a different view of wealth.

If asked to approximate your wealth, you would likely estimate your bank balance and any real-estate or stocks/bonds/investments (if you own any). If a traditional Navajo Indian were asked the same question, she or he would list the beautiful songs they knew by heart, especially those they had self-created. Then they would add their art works, like rugs, pottery or poetry, as well as all the beautiful sights they have seen, like desert sunsets. For the traditional Navajo beauty is a way of life, a lifestyle called Nózh’q (hoe-shk).I say the “traditional” Navajo since today sadly many of them have been contaminated by our addictive commercialism and material values and forgotten the ancient way of a life of beauty. Let you and I, along with our Native American brothers and sisters, strive to make our lifestyle that of Nózh’q. We begin this life change by rejecting the illusion that bigger television screens or other such possessions are signs of status or wealth. Begin this radical conversion by making what is beautiful not some superficial luxury but rather something essential to your home and personal lives. We shape our homes—and then they shape us! Beauty does not cost a penny! It requires the desire and discipline to bring harmony and creation’s variety of beauty into our lives and surroundings.Beauty is a sacred manifestation of the Divine. Enjoying beautiful things and sights is a sensual Holy Communion. Beauty is prayer-full. So if you feel anxious or fearful, close your eyes and visualize something beautiful. Find healing in re-envisioning a vacation memory of the soothing repetition of waves washing ashore or being in a forest of towering giant trees. Beauty is healing. Look long and lovingly at the view outside your window or visually caress an old family heirloom to allow the beauty to heal and rejuvenate you.God is beauty and God is ugliness! Unique vision, however, is needed to see the divine in what is perceived as ugly, unattractive and even repulsive since they require X-ray vision to see beneath the surface to that which God finds delightfully beautiful. Whenever confronted with the ugly, look directly at it as you practice using X-faith-ray vision.

The Captivating Power of Your Surroundings

Dear old and new friends, There’s an old saying we easily forget: “We shape our buildings and then they shape us!” It tells us that we unknowingly resemble our environments. Be it beauty or plainness, each is duplicated in those surrounded by them. Carl Jung said, “Every Roman was surrounded by slaves. The slave and his psychology flooded ancient Italy, and every Roman became inwardly, and of course unwittingly, a slave, because living constantly in the atmosphere of slaves, he became infected through the unconscious with the psychology. No one can shield himself from such an influence.” (Italics mine.) Seriously ponder his last sentence! Those ensnared deeply in poverty typically are accused of being just unwilling to work or lacking initiative. Yet it takes an Olympian effort for those who have grown up in ramshackle, trash-cluttered, dirty surroundings to prevail over the influences of their poverty. How different would be their prospects in life if they had been raised amidst order and the beautiful. Beauty is not a luxury; rather it is essential in every home, school, office and city because of its affect. To be surrounded by beauty does not require wealth, even the poorest can live in the beauty of creation. I recall years ago visiting a convent of women religious that I found to be bleakly devoid of beauty. Except for a lone crucifix, the severely bare rooms were as desolate as prison cells. I’m sure the sisters who lived there had been indoctrinated to believe their rooms reflected the spirit of poverty. Yet authentic Gospel poverty, like God, is never barren but rather as luxuriously rich as springtime creation. Whatever the denomination, examine the interior of your church with an honest critical eye to perceive how it shaping you and your religious beliefs. Do the stain glass windows that block any view of the local neighborhood and your environment proclaim your religion has little or nothing to do with the world and its activities? Most Roman Catholic churches, even brand new ones, have as their main focal point a large, realistic crucifix! For the past five hundred years the belief was that the source of redemption was the death of Jesus on the cross. Fifty years ago the Vatican Council declared that the source of our redemption wasn’t the crucifixion, but the Resurrection of Jesus! Should not the church declare a renovation of every parish church so it expressed and shaped the people in the hopeful, joyous victory of Easter instead of the agonizing and violent death of Good Friday? Protestant, Catholic or Muslim, we shape our worship spaces and then they shape us!

Edward Hays

Haysian haphazard thoughts on theinvisible and visible mysteries of life.